Expecting comfort?

 

We just returned from a very short ‘mission’ trip. It had one high moment and the rest of it was uncomfortable, puzzling, and a stress on our comprehension. We knew our assignment was seed-planting and soon realized the ground was hard as cement. God made it clear that the only thing that softens it would be loving encouragement. A rebuke or even advice would only pound it harder.

Piper’s reading for today parallels our experience in telling how he felt when he encountered the challenges of obeying God. His assignments are not necessarily cushy and comfortable. He reviews John 20, Jesus with His disciples after the resurrection. They had all deserted Him and were not worthy to be called His brothers, but He called them that, said “Peace to you” and then said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” (John 20:21)

Piper was moved by this in that these disciples had been hiding in fear, deserved to be rebuked, and “were just like me.” I can relate. On my assignment, He asked me to love the unlovable and I felt fearful and wanted to hide. However, He gave me incredible and unexpected (never mind undeserved) joy, the kind of joy that makes me fearless.

Piper then thought of Paul’s experience as a missionary for Jesus. This man described it:

… as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything. (2 Corinthians 6:4–10)

Who thinks missionary work is a glamorous life? Paul said, “as having nothing yet possessing all things.” And Jesus said,

Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. (Mark 10:29–30)

Comfortable Christian living is a false teaching in one sense. If I am willing to leave all to follow Jesus and to share the gospel, then I can expect opposition, even though the gain is incredible:

For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:21–23)

PRAY: Jesus, because I have You, life gives me everything needed, even joy in the mess of it. What can ruin that? Only my own sin can rob me of it. You also say: “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.” (Psalm 126:5–6) We did sow the seeds. I may not see the harvest until I ‘come home’ but Your joy is already blessing my heart. For that, the struggles and discomfort fade and my prayers are filled with confidence. You always keep Your promises.

Held up but not held back

A ninety-two-year-old woman got in her car in a parking lot after doing some shopping. A man jumped into the passenger seat and told her that unless she gave him her money, he would kill her. After saying no several times, she finally said to him, “If you kill me, I will go to heaven, but when you die, you will go to hell.”

This plucky woman then shared the gospel with the man, who began to cry. He said he needed to go home and pray about this. She told him that he didn’t need to go home because he could pray anywhere. She gave him the only money she had, $10, and he left.

After seeing this story on YouTube, I wondered if I would have the same response to danger. Would being in such a pickle bring out of me the truth that is so dear to me the rest of the time?

It did for the apostle Paul. He had been arrested and was in prison in Rome. He wrote to the church at Philippi and said this,

I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ. (Philippians 1:12-13)

Paul considered himself a prisoner of the Lord, held captive by the gospel and the grace of God. No one could lock up a freed sinner. He might have been confined to one location, but that did not stop him from sharing with others the same truth that lady shared in the parking lot with her attacker. Jesus saves sinners, and unless a person avails themselves of His offer of eternal life, they are bound for eternal destruction.

It is a powerful message. It reduced a gun-carrying would-be robber to tears. It also changed the lives of people who lived and worked in the royal palace in Rome. Paul ended his letter with this:

All the saints greet you, but especially those who are of Caesar’s household. (Philippians 4:22)

Being confined and threatened can be viewed as a fearful and terrible calamity, or it can be seen as an opportunity to tell others about Jesus. I may never go to jail or be accosted by a thug, but if it happens, I’ve at least two examples of how to conduct myself in such situations!